Climate Change

Long after we each cease to exist, the physical outcomes of the choices we make today, and tomorrow, will linger. Shadows of our decisions on policy, energy and lifestyle will manifest as the consequence of our injection of greenhouse gases into the Earth’s atmosphere.

Despite many international meetings, dealing with every subject from biodiversity to climate change, the national political elites have found it impossible to come to meaningful agreements to deal with the environmental crisis. […] There is no avoiding imagining new and different scenarios than the status quo. Surely another world is possible.”
– Dimitrios Roussopoulos[1]

We live in times where there seems to be a crisis in just about everything – from the so called financial sector, through the contemporary mass migratory processes, to the severe corrosion of the social fabric. The ruling elites, devoted to the dominant doctrine of economism, advocate for the priority that should be given to the economy, many activists struggle for the humane treatment of migrants, while growing numbers of new age mysticists call for escapism and individual salvation.

One crisis in particular, however, is being unevenly neglected, in comparison with the above mentioned crises – the climate one. There is reason why this serious problem is being constantly postponed by those in seats of power. Unlike the financial crisis, which offers a wide playground for different economic “shamans” to put forward their theories that do not leave the imaginary of economism, the climate change and the ongoing environmental degradation questions the contemporary dogmas of constant growth and domination, demanding solutions beyond them. Surely there are international summits and agreements for tackling this problem, but their outcomes are nonbinding and often neglected in the expense of economic “prosperity”.

The climate crisis, as growing number of researches are revealing, will have us pay a dear cost for the wasteful and destructive lifestyle that capitalism promotes. It will even deepen the rest of the ongoing crises. It is not yet completely clear what exact effects and processes will be triggered by the climate change, but it is increasingly clear that the results will not be favorable to us, unless we decide to change the contemporary dominant paradigm with a new one that will allow us to develop our potential inside the planetary limits.

On Thursday, June 1, Trump announced that he will withdraw the United States from the Paris Accord on climate change. This is the accord stemming from the UN Climate Summit of December 2015 in Paris. From day one of his presidency, Trump has been doing his best to roll back any environmental protections, and the withdrawal from the Paris Accord is his overall declaration of climate change denialism.

This memorandum proposes an analysis and provisional framework around which to construct an ambitious and effective agenda for progressive labor to respond to the converging environmental crises, and to pursue a rapid, inclusive approach to energy transition and social justice.

The global warming situation is absolutely crazy. Millions of people are already experiencing drought, famine, floods, wildfires, superstorms and other climate disasters. As a species, we are teetering on the edge of full-blown catastrophe, with extinction a distinctpossibility. Yet, we can’t seem to put in place obvioussolutions that are sitting right there in front of us.

Take the “100 by ‘50” legislation recently introduced by Oregon Senator Merkley and other Democrats. Environmental leaders lined up to celebrate this as the blueprint that will get us beyond global warming, even though it’s nothing of the sort. Some environmentalists used their endorsements to denounce Republicans for being funded by the fossil fuel industry, deftly ignoring the fundingreceived byDemocrats from that same industry. The message was clear: when we put Democrats back in power and pass a bill like “100 by ‘50”, we’ll be on our way to solving the climate crisis.

This is pure hogwash. The Democrats have kept us running in circles as the climate crisis has deepened. And although this new bill purports to get us to 100% clean and renewable energy by 2050—hence the catchy title—it almost certainly won’t do that. Yes, it is “the most ambitious piece of climate legislation Congress has ever seen”. But that’s only because prior offerings were so pathetic that “100 by ’50” seems ambitious in comparison.

It’s crucial that we understand this as Donald Trump and the Republicans move forward with their horrifying agenda. More than ever, we need to be uniting behind a real climate action plan and the broader vision for society it engenders. We need to be building a movement that has a clear understanding of where our power lies and how to use it.

President Trump’s decision Thursday to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement could make it difficult, if not impossible, for the world to stay on track to reach an internationally agreed-upon goal for limiting dangerous global warming, scientists said.

That goal, which sought to limit warming to “well below” a 2-degree Celsius (3.6-degree Fahrenheit) rise above preindustrial temperatures, was already a stretch before Trump announced the U.S. exit in a speech in the White House Rose Garden.

To the dismay of our allies, the White House could any day announce the U.S. will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. But as a patriot and climate activist, I’m not dismayed. I actually want to pull out.

President Donald Trump confirmed his status as climate denier in chief today, guaranteeing his place in history as an enemy of both science and humanity. Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Accord on climate change will not stop the rest of the world from continuing to advance toward a clean-energy future. Solar, wind, batteries, and other technologies are growing tremendously fast, rewarding investors and employing far more people than the heat-trapping fuels of the past.